[Ofa_boardplus] OFED license statement

[Atchley, Scott]

Hi Susan,

I would amend the motion to specify the Linux kernel. I also think it goes too far. The ULPs and the device drivers are still dual-licensed. We cannot change that licensing without getting agreement from all of the contributors. Given that, I propose to amend the LANL proposal with:

> The OFA accepts the nature of Linux kernel space code as GPLv2 and user space as dual-licensed (GPLv2 and BSD) and approves the release of OFED 3.18-2 with the following text included in a README.license file.
> 
> "OFED is distributed as a source tarball and includes both user space and Linux kernel space code.  The Linux kernel space code includes a number of files that are licensed under GPLv2 only.  Therefore, the Linux kernel space code included as part of the OFED tarball contains some dual-licensed files and some GPLv2-only files.  All user space code, however, is dual licensed (GPLv2 and BSD)."



As a side-note, the Linux kernel code already has other Linux-specific dependencies such as on the memory management subsystem. A vendor wishing to use the OFED code as a template for another OS (e.g. *BSD, Windows) can use the ULPs as a guide, but they would not be able to use them directly. They would also not be able to use the GPL utilities unless they accept the GPL license for the utilities (with which they risk contaminating the rest of the non-Linux kernel?). They would either need to (1) rewrite the ULPs to not use the utilities or (2) cleanroom implement the utilities. They already need to rewrite the ULPs to replace the Linux-specific dependencies (e.g. memory subsystem) so this is not unprecedented.

Scott

> On Mar 6, 2017, at 2:10 PM, Coulter, Susan K <skc at lanl.gov> wrote:
> 
> 
> There is enough concern, that it appears we need a formal vote.
> This discussion and coming to a final conclusion has taken a lot longer than anyone had hoped.
> Due to that delay - I would like to try an email vote.
> 
> The fact of the matter is that we cannot change reality.
> One reality is the existence of GPL only code in the kernel.
> The other reality is the lack of clarity in our bylaws.
> 
> Sections 2 and 13.1.A talk about “either” GPL or BSD.
> Sections 16.2.a and 16.3 try to enforce the dual license nature of Open Fabrics software.
> In many places we refer to “Contributors”, which are not the same as”Members".
> There is some language that tries to exert control over the licensing of Contributor’s code.
> We have all agreed that the horse is out of the barn on this issue with respect to kernel space.
> 
> LANL offers the following motion:
> 
> The OFA accepts the nature of the kernel space code as GPLv2 and user space as dual-licensed (GPLv2 and BSD) and approves the release of OFED 3.18-2 with the following text included in a README.license file.
> 
> "OFED is distributed as a source tarball and includes both kernel space and user space code.  The kernel space code includes a number of files that are licensed under GPLv2 only.  Therefore, the kernel space code included as part of the OFED tarball is licensed as GPLv2.  The user space code, however, is dual licensed (GPLv2 and BSD)."
> 
> 
> 
> ==================================================
> Susan Coulter / HPC-DES
> Network Capability Lead
> (505) 667-8425
> “Once in a while you get shown the light
>    In the strangest of places if you look at it right”  Robert Hunter
> ==================================================
> 
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